Communal showers banished in the new sports centre

By 2020, it should be in place. An amazing new sports centre on campus Woudestein. It will be situated opposite the Hatta building on Erasmus Plaza, on the site of the former multi-storey car park next to Sanders building, where there are now two beach volleyball fields.

The glory days of the current building, a concrete colossus hidden away on the edge of the campus, are behind us. “This building has been constantly extended,” says Erasmus Sport director Jon de Ruijter. In 2012, major extension work was carried out to provide a new gym and a new entrance on the south side.

But that new gym is already too small. Erasmus Sport is growing fast.

Extra sports hall

The new sports centre will accommodate three sports halls, two training areas and around 900 square metres of fitness space. The arrival of a third sports hall means that many associations can complete their competitions on campus, instead of having to use other venues in the city, as is now the case. And on the site of the current sports halls, there will be extra tennis courts. “Now we have 500 tennis players playing their matches all over the city, which is obviously a shame,” according to De Ruijter.

The building will fulfil all the demands of the coordinating sports organisation NOC*NSF. It is not yet certain what it will look like, but it will definitely consist of two parts divided by an ‘interior walkway’.

Too many changing rooms

De Ruijter expects the new sports centre to be ‘easier to get around and more sustainable’. “Because so much has been added on over the years, we have far too many changing rooms. You can’t expect people to walk right from the back of the building to the front. In the new building, the changing rooms will be in a central location. And there will be individual shower cubicles, because internationals and staff, and increasingly Dutch students, don’t enjoy taking showers together. Communal showers are therefore a thing of the past,” says De Ruijter.

Construction work will start in spring 2019 and take around a year and a half. The current sports centre will then be demolished.